ArcGIS Pro 1.4 was released last week and hopefully some of you have already had a look at the new features. I’ve been watching it growing up since its first release and it became my desktop tool of choice a couple of versions ago. At 1.4 it now covers the workflows I typically use and my days of dipping back into ArcMap may be over.
Georeferencing
For me, one of the big gaps has now been plugged with the arrival of georeferencing for imagery and CAD. To georeference an image, click on the Imagery ribbon to activate the Georeferencing ribbon. This has all the familiar options to create and mange control points, as well choosing your transformation:
Note – the name of the image being georeferenced is shown in the small floating panel to the right. As well as saving the georeferencing against the original, you can save the result as a new raster instead. The Auto Georeference option might be useful if you are georeferencing a series of rasters with similar locations, spectral resolution, and spatial resolution. For CAD data the work flow is very similar, with the georeferencing activated from the CAD Tools ribbon.
Innovations
One of the things that’s exciting about new versions of Pro are the innovations and we get more of these in 1.4. Scrolling through the what’s new list gave me a tired thumb and there is far too much to cover in this post. So I’ve decided to put my interest in working with 3D data to one side for now and come back to multipatch editing, adding text and image overlay to animations, the new 3D Analyst Tools and profile charts. There are a whole new set of tools for Ortho Mapping (requires and Advanced license). The Geostatistical Analyst extension has a completely new way to construct and evaluate interpolation models using the Geostatistical Wizard.
It was something more subtle that I was keen to try – display filters. For each layer there is now the option to add display filters, which apply a SQL query to control which features are shown at a particular scale. Unlike a definition query, the filter is only for display and the features can still be selected and are include by analysis tools. You can add multiple display filters, setting the scale range with the sliders at the top. In this example I am filtering on the area of the forest polygons – hiding the small blocks in the valley bottom at smaller scales:
The scale range slider has tooltips – especially handy when I expected the range bar to run the other way. To set a particular scale you need to have added it to the fixed scales in the map (which you can now name with aliases). You can now keep your map clear across a range of scales without having to duplicate layers.
Another example of these small innovations is the filter by extent option for the table view – the button is on the Table ribbon – making it easier to view the data for an area of interest. Next to the filter by extent button you’ll see the other two filter options that work with time and a layer’s range. Setting a range for a layer is done in the properties and it also activates the range slider to control the features visible in the map by data range. A much more interactive way to explore your data than using definition queries.
The Arcade expression language got a mention when I was looking at the latest ArcGIS Online update and is now available in Pro. So you can use your Arcade expressions to set label behaviour in the desktop as well now.
Portal tools
If you are working with a federated Portal you can now use analysis tools in Pro that work with the capabilities of your portal. At 10.5, ArcGIS Enterprise introduced GeoAnalytics and, as Dan highlighted in his post, the tools can be used within ArcGIS Pro 1.4.
For the full lowdown on all the new features, grab a cup of tea and read through the what’s new page. Also, please double check the slight changes to system requirements, especially if you work with 3D data.
Update: you can see the new features in action in the video tour here.